Super Heroes Marvel

Avengers Helicarrier

A flying fortress that spins all four rotors from one hidden wheel.

Brick Rated Score

3.9/5

Set 76153 · 2020

Pieces1,248

Minifigs8

Year2020

Set number76153

Check price on Amazon

Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

The verdict

The turbine gearing is the thing that won me over, four rotor blades whirring away when you roll it across the table off a single hidden wheel buried in the hull.

The eight-figure lineup is genuinely great too. Just know going in that all that Technic machinery eats the inside, so you get a cockpit and a M.O.D.O.K. holding cell and not much else. If you want play features and figures over a display piece, this one delivers.

Best for: Marvel fans who care more about play features and figures than a hollow interior

The full review

What it is

The Avengers Helicarrier is LEGO's play-scale take on the flying SHIELD fortress, and the headline trick is one you feel the moment you finish it. Roll the whole thing along a smooth table and all four rotor blades spin at once, driven by a hidden wheel underneath that feeds a gear system running the length of the hull. It's the kind of feature that makes you push it back and forth way longer than you'd admit. This LEGO® set landed in July 2020 with 1,248 pieces, and for a box aimed at age 9 and up, that internal machinery is more clever than you'd expect.

The catch

Where it gets honest is the inside, or rather the lack of one. All those cogs and drive shafts have to live somewhere, and they end up claiming almost the entire interior. You get a cockpit up front that seats three figures in a line like a fighter jet, and a small holding cell at the back for a captured M.O.D.O.K., and that is genuinely your lot. There's no crew deck, no command room, none of the interior play you might picture from the films. The build itself is the other soft spot. It has a few nice moments, but it's simpler than the piece count suggests and comes together fast, which stung a little at the original 119.99 dollar price. Reviewers landed around the same place, and the Brickset community rating sits at 3.9 out of 5.

Who it's for

The people this will make happiest are easy to spot. If you love the Marvel roster and want figures and features you can actually play with, the lineup alone carries it, and that spinning-rotor gimmick has a lot of charm. If you're after a detailed display model with a rich interior to pose scenes in, this isn't it, and you'll feel the emptiness every time you look inside. It retired in November 2021 after about eighteen months on shelves, and sealed copies have climbed well past their old retail price, so if the figures and the mechanism speak to you, grab it knowing exactly what you're getting. For me it's a very good set with one real caveat, and worth it if playability is what you came for.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this one is a story of two halves. The first stretch is the hull and that Technic skeleton, where you're laying down a run of gears, axles, and drive shafts that connect the hidden center wheel to all four rotor assemblies. It's the most interesting part of the build and genuinely satisfying to test as you go. After that the outer shell goes on quickly, and the pace picks up almost too much. There are a handful of neat techniques scattered through the deck plating and the angled prow, but nothing that'll stop you in your tracks, and a confident builder will be done in an afternoon.

The pieces you'll remember are the functional and printed ones. That gear train is the real parts highlight, an intricate little drivetrain packed into a set marketed at kids. The figure printing is where the value sits: eight minifigs including Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, War Machine, Nick Fury, an A.I.M. Agent, and the big-headed M.O.D.O.K., who's essentially a specialty build in his own right. You also get a separate brick-built jet and an A.I.M. jet pack. At 1,248 pieces for 119.99 dollars the raw part-count value is only okay, but factor in eight figures and the working mechanism and the math reads a lot friendlier.

Fun facts

01Roll the Helicarrier along a smooth surface and a single hidden wheel underneath drives a gear train that spins all four rotor blades at once.
02M.O.D.O.K., short for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, gets his own dedicated holding cell built into the rear of the ship.
03This is the small, play-focused Helicarrier. LEGO's earlier 2015 SHIELD Helicarrier (76042) was a display piece with 2,996 pieces, more than double this one.
04It retired in November 2021 after about eighteen months, and new sealed copies have since climbed well above their original 119.99 dollar price.